~~The Roger Treatment
ch 1
The Announcement
Lillian approached the dinner table carrying a large plate of profiteroles. Wiggling her somewhat matronly hips she slid into her chair, plonked the dessert in front of her and announced in the affected sing song voice of a spoilt child,
‘So we are going to move to France!’
It was a statement intended to shock as well as invite debate. Roger, sitting at the opposite end of the elaborately decorated table, beamed contentedly at their assembled friends through the thick, smeared lenses of his spectacles. Lillian’s announcement resulted in stunned silence for a moment or two, then there was a hubbub of voices asking why, what for, and when?
This dinner party, one of the many given by the Bowcotts during the course of any year, was taking place early in February. Eight people were sitting around the table, having enjoyed another of Lillian’s exceptionally high-calorie, well-cooked meals, washed down with huge quantities of Roger’s best wine. The six guests were considered to be their closest friends, but they could easily have invited many more people who fell into the same category.
The Bowcotts collect people in the same way you or I might collect records, books or postcards. The more people in the collection; the more successful Lillian considered herself to be. Popularity, friends, social acceptance, are some of her main reasons for living.
Tucking a stray lock of her dyed blonde hair behind one ear, she responded first to the question of ‘why?’
‘Lots of lovely wine!’ she simpered, as she took a large mouthful of the Chardonnay in her glass.
‘You must all come over to visit us, or I shall feel so lonely.’ She took another huge gulp, emptied her glass and held it out to Roger for a refill. He left his place, picked up a bottle of red and another of white, and walked around the table filling all the other glasses, leaning just a little too closely over the shoulders of the female guests.
‘We’re going to build a swimming pool, the weather will be fantastic. Do say you’ll come.’ his wife continued. It didn’t take much to convince them all about the benefits of a holiday with free food and drink, non-stop sunshine and the company of Roger and Lillian. Each of the three couples agreed to visit the Bowcotts in France for various lengths of time in the coming summer.
Why did the Bowcotts really want to live in France? Certainly it wasn’t because they loved French people and wanted to become absorbed in their culture. Lillian had never heard of Gerard Depardieu and Roger thought Johnnie Halliday was the only pop star the French have ever produced! They had both listened to Je t’aime on the radio during their younger days and enjoyed a good smooch to its apparently racy lyrics, but they never really took any interest in the prolific, creative and thought-provoking work of Serge Gainsbourg. And, if they’d really understood what he was singing about in that song, they may not have been so smoochy!
Roger and Lillian decided to live in France because they had enjoyed such wonderful summer holidays there. The sun always shone on them during their fortnight abroad, or so it seemed in their memory. There were always lots of fellow Brits to talk to, and to add to their people-collection; new friends to socialise with, and, of course the wine really is much cheaper than back in the UK. In the hotels and restaurants of the big French resorts, one could always buy food from any nation, so Roger wasn’t deprived of his bacon and eggs nor Lillian, her sausages, or fish and chips. The couple never went on holiday by themselves; they were usually accompanied by at least one other couple from the collection.
Lillian really does think that the world judges her by the number of friends she has collected, but could these people really be friends? How many of them are just acquaintances that pass through her life? And how many will stand the test of time and support her in hours of difficulty, the way a true friend will? Some of them you will be meeting in the course of this story, so you will be able to make your own decisions.
Whereas Lillian has fondness for all people, Roger has a particular weakness for about half of them – the female sex! They don’t have to be particularly pretty, or witty, or intelligent, just female, in order to receive the ‘Roger Treatment’. He sees all women as a challenge just waiting for his charm offensive, each one of them apparently longing to be seduced by him. He just can’t help himself. Sometimes he’s successful, but as he gets older, he most often fails. It’s amazing that he strikes lucky at all, and when he does, how much of this nefarious activity is known or suspected by Lillian? She keeps herself in good order; the hair is regularly retouched, the makeup bag replenished, and her wardrobe overflows with clothes more suited to a younger woman than somebody well past middle age. Does she do all this to prevent her husband from straying?
Once the decision to emigrate to the other side of the Channel had been made, the couple looked forward to meeting and thus collecting, lots of new people, as well as eating cheap but excellent food and quaffing many bottles of local wine. Life would be one long holiday! Lillian thought she would add ‘some frenchies’ to her people collection, and with enough French wine inside him, Roger felt sure he could make a few more notches on his bedpost. He saw the Roger Treatment as the Norman invasion in reverse (but who was Norman? he wondered.)
Once Lillian had really accepted that a move was the very best thing, and she did take a bit of persuading or bribing, the couple started to look at properties to purchase. They ignored the advice from Roger’s favourite TV programmes, which said one should always rent first in order to see if the area is to one’s liking. The Bowcotts knew they would be happy wherever they went, provided that a property conducive to their social lifestyle could be found. The house had to suit their existing suburban, dark and highly polished furniture, a dining room that would show off the china cabinet and its contents to perfection. (Hyacinth Bucket of TV fame had nothing on Lillian). Lots of plain smooth walls were needed for the Lowry prints and the Van Gogh Sunflowers, not to mention the children’s graduation photographs. Then there was the all-important wine cellar, Roger’s main reason for moving to France (apart from those stylish French women of course).
The quest wasn’t easy because for some strange reason, the Bowcotts, who have always lived in a town, decided to look only in rural areas, where, because of agriculture and low wages, there is little new-build housing. The French, in the past, have been notoriously bad at DIY, preferring to enjoy their free time, rather than improving their houses, which many of them don’t own anyway. In the houses the Bowcotts inspected, the interior decoration left a lot to be desired - in Lillian’s eyes.
‘It’s all so shabby Roger. Why don’t the French take a pride in their homes?’ She noticed that the redecoration of the past century involved slapping yet another coat of wallpaper on top of the previous one, and why was there so much brown paintwork? No fitted carpets either, it shocked them both when they realised that the rural French people prefer a tiled floor.
Eventually, luck was on their side, their English estate agent found them just what they wanted; a rural detached house with a wine cellar and perfect interior decoration, being sold by………. another British couple! This couple had realised they’d made a major mistake in uprooting themselves and moving to France where they knew nobody and hardly anyone spoke their own language. Obviously they didn’t tell this to the Bowcotts, they badly wanted to sell.